La littérature française du 20e siècle lue de l’étranger ed. by Dominique Viart (review)

VIART, DOMINIQUE, éd. La littérature française du 20e siècle lue de l’étranger. Lille: PU du Septentrion, 2011. ISBN 9-782757-40207-8. Pp. 281. 47 a. This volume, sponsored by the Institut Français, aims at providing an overview of what sorts of twentieth-century French literature are read in eighteen different geographical entities of which twelve are countries in Eastern and Western Europe, one a language enclave (Flanders), one a “unité culturelle relativement homogène” (77; Scandinavia), and the other four are countries in the Middle East and Asia. Each area is examined by a different scholar, and since the bulk of the information gathered is from conferences, journals, and studies devoted to movements, single authors or groups of writers, what this book really supplies is a very clear sense of what academics think is important to read in modern and contemporary French literature. This study supplies what is being read, but never really ventures into the area of why certain works and authors are being read. While there is no conclusion to this collection, the two initial chapters by Xavier Darcos and Dominique Viart, which serve as an introduction, sketch out in broad terms the collective findings of the different scholars. In this respect it is of interest to note that although the overall viewpoint is that modern French literature has a respectable following abroad, currently theory is on a downward slope, theater and poetry are surviving if not thriving, and the novel, be it French or Francophone, is doing quite well. Indeed, if contemporary French fiction is one prolonged variation on nombrilisme, as some artists and critics have claimed, the word has apparently not gotten out beyond the Hexagon. In “La littérature française dans le monde,” Viart raises an interesting issue. He recognizes the importance of the novel, but seems to lament that the scholarly research on this genre tends to avoid serious confrontation with “l’imaginaire romanesque” (22) in favor of approaches borrowed from the social sciences and cultural studies. For Viart this shift is “le signe que la littérature apparaît moins [...] comme le lieu de l’expression ou de la rêverie que comme celui de la pensée sur le monde—option partagée [...] par nombre d’écrivains contemporains” (23). Viart is surely right in this assessment, but one might well wish to consider this change, if it really is a change, more positively than he does. Part of the renewed vitality of French fiction has been its increasing engagement with social and political issues, with the effect, for instance, of World War II on contemporary France, and the examination of the somewhat nebulous distinction between the literary and the historical text. An aspect of contemporary culture has been the erosion of firm demarcations between the various scholarly disciplines coupled with literature’s willingness and perhaps need to glean information and even techniques from history and the social sciences. The volume under review, which features a sociological approach to literature, is a successful example of this phenomenon. To say that the various contributions to this study are remarkably similar is to say that each essay is clearly written, highly informative, and packed with useful data. It may not come as a surprise that in terms of scholarly interest Proust seems to be the most popular author, or that Gide’s star has been dimming in the contemporary world, but it was certainly encouraging to discover that studies of contemporary fiction are on the rise. The Institut Français, which organized the conference from which this collection emerged, was created in 2010. With this volume and despite its brief existence, it has already made its mark on contempo838 FRENCH REVIEW 86.4 rary scholarship. There is every reason to look forward to its future activities with great interest. Florida State University William Cloonan WARREN, MICHELLE R. Creole Medievalism: Colonial France and Joseph Bédier’s Middle Ages. Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8166-6526-6. Pp. xxxii + 379. $25. Warren’s wide-ranging book tells the story of desire for wholeness and belonging , played out in the nationalist discourse of Third-Republic France as well...